“Fuck you, Jimmy. I told you I was staying home tonight, not last night. And besides”—I waggled my left ring finger in his face—“you see a ring on this finger? Maybe then you can start bossing me around.”
“Maisie.” He reached for my shoulder again.
I ducked. “Don’t.” I could hear Lucy crying in the kitchen. “You told me to meet you at the theatre.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Are you telling me I’m lying? Get the fuck out of here.” I could hear myself screaming inside, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, forgive me. “Who fuckin’ needs you.”
“Yeah, Maisie, I know.” He looked like he might cry. “Nothing or no one. Right? Isn’t that what you say?”
“Fuckin’ straight. Leave me alone.” I headed down the hall for the bedroom, scowling at Lucy as I passed the kitchen entrance. She stood there frozen, like a wounded bird hoping the cat will just disappear. I slammed the door, locked it behind me and stood in front of the vanity mirror.
I could hear them talking, their voices a mumble from behind the door. I unzipped my housecoat and let it fall to the floor, slipped my nightie over my head and tossed it. I watched in the mirror as I pressed the scabbed line just below my collarbone. Fresh from last night’s drawing, the blood pearled again, red and brilliant against my brown skin. The second-day pain was not the same. No piercing with the knife. It was duller, but still sharp enough to make me feel clean. I looked at my face and pressed the wound; the pain sharpened a little and the tension eased. I could see Jimmy’s girl in the mirror again. I pulled a tissue from the box, daubed the ruby droplets and placed the tissue carefully under the pantyhose box in the basket so no one would see. I sat on the bed and dressed, straining to hear what those two were talking about. I knew I had to find a way to get Lucy to stay quiet when I went out. I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt, brushed my hair and pinned it back with a small barrette the shape of a bow. The kind Jimmy liked. I opened the bedroom door and walked into the living room. Lucy sat on the couch, a stricken look on her face, Jimmy next to her looking like a beat-down dog.
“I’m sorry, Jimmy.” I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me, puzzled and hurt. “I musta got it all mixed up.”
“Yeah, I guess it just got mixed up.” He stood and looked down at me for a long moment. With a deep sigh, he leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.
“Lucy and I have a day off tomorrow. Why don’t we show her the seawall? Let’s hit the park and make a day of it.” I looked at Lucy and smiled. She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath all this time. “Lucy, you will love it there. We’ll pack a lunch tonight and we can head out early in the morning.” If it weren’t for the ache between my legs, I might even have convinced myself I had been at the movies the night before.
Jimmy held my hand as we sat on the bus. Lucy sat on the single seat across from us and looked out the window, her face a picture of wonderment at the city sights. I smiled, thinking of my first days in the city, remembering how it had been so frightening and awesome at once. I nudged Jimmy.
“Was I like that when I first got here?”
“You were just like that.” He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Like an old woman and a little kid at the same time.”
I smiled at him, the panic rising in me. I knew he loved me, but he wouldn’t if he knew. I slipped out from under his arm.
“Hey, Lucy, that’s English Bay where all the hippies hang out.” She was gawking out the bus window at the wildly dressed and underdressed collection of free spirits on the beach.
She reached over, nudged me and whispered, “Those girls aren’t wearing bras!”
I laughed at her. “Lucy, freedom comes in many forms.”
“Or lack of forms,” Jimmy added, looking all innocent.
I reached up and pulled the bell. “Guys—that’s all you think of, innit?”
“What?!” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders as we got off the bus at the corner of Denman and Davie.
“Come on.” I stuck my arm through Lucy’s. “We’ll walk to the park from here.”
I smiled at the look of disbelief on her face as she took in the sights of the sidewalk vendors and their wares, ranging from silver puzzle rings to happy-face T-shirts, trade bead bracelets and huarache sandals. Wafts of patchouli oil rose from the naked arms of the hippie girls swirling around their stands in their exotic Indian print cotton skirts. Young men, barefoot and shirtless, with hair longer even than the women, played guitars and bongo drums, some singing, some extending their hats for spare change. Lucy turned to me, her eyes wide, speechless. Instead of words, she laughed her tumbling laugh.
“It’s a long way from the Mission, isn’t it?” I wondered how long it would take her to adjust.
“Can you imagine Sister here? She would go crazy.”
Jimmy sighed. “God, do you ever stop talking smack about that woman? I’m sure she was just doing her job.”
Lucy and I looked at each other. “Yeah, right,” Lucy half whispered as the exuberance of the day drained from her face. “If her job was to try to kill us.”
“Jimmy, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You didn’t have to go there or any place like it either.” I punched him in the shoulder.
“Really?” Lucy turned to look at Jimmy like he was some strange creature. “How come? I thought all Indians had to go or the parents would go to jail. That’s what they always said.”
“Jimmy’s parents took him across the line to Seattle before the priest could get him. He went to school with all the little white kids in Seattle. Didn’t you, Jimmy?”
He got that sullen look. “Yeah. So? I still think she couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Oh really? Maybe you should ask your mom and dad how good it was. So good they had to run away with you so you wouldn’t go through it.”
“I told you, Maisie, they never talk about it.”
“I wonder why! Lucy, show him your ear.” Lucy pulled her hair away, exposing the angry red scar. “Come on, Lucy.” I grabbed her arm again and we fast-walked, leaving Jimmy to follow.
“Don’t be so hard on him, Maisie. How could he know?”
“Well, he could just believe us. Why would we lie? He says he loves me but won’t believe me about it? I can’t handle that.” A jittery feeling rose in me as we practically jogged toward the entrance to Stanley Park. Jimmy, looking confused, hurried behind us.
Lucy was more entertaining than the park that day, amazed at the whales in the aquarium and laughing herself silly riding the kiddie train through the zoo. She had me and Jimmy laughing too. Our stomachs hurt with her imitations of the monkeys outside the monkey house. I thought of myself fresh out of the Mission, and couldn’t believe I had seemed as much like a child as she did.
I reached for Jimmy’s hand as we headed home. He looked at me, all hurt.
“I know I didn’t have to go, Maisie, but you don’t have to hold it against me like that.”
I pulled my hand away. “I don’t hold it against you, Jimmy, but you gotta realize. Shit happened there. Shit you don’t even wanna know about. You weren’t there. So why do you have to pretend you might know something about it? You don’t. That girl and me, we know. Things you would never believe.”
Lucy caught up to us after dawdling behind, talking to a vendor. I gave Jimmy my best shut-up look and hoped he would. He didn’t.
“Lucy, what was the worst thing that happened to you? At least you’re alive, here, free like anyone else.”
Lucy froze on the spot, her face a picture of panic.
I turned to Jimmy. “Just shut up about it now. Why would anyone wanna talk about it?” I looked back at Lucy and saw the little girl again, always quiet, always alone, always walking off the playground with Father. I thought she was going to cry. “Why don’t you just fuck right off, Jimmy. Grab a goddamn brain. Go home!”
We left him standing there, his mouth hanging open, and headed for the bus stop on our own
. I could see the anger flash in his eyes as he turned and strode away in the opposite direction.
“I’m sorry, Maisie.”
“Shit, Lucy, don’t be sorry. He was being a complete dick. I don’t know why he practically stands up for those assholes at the Mission. Come on, here’s our bus.”
We settled into our seats and I looked at her. I wanted to tell her that I had cleaned Father’s rooms too, that I knew when he plucked her off the playground that day what would happen to her. I wanted to say I was sorry. Instead, I pinched her and we laughed, remembering how we never let Sister win. She would never get the satisfaction of seeing us cry.
I left Lucy alone again that night. This time I didn’t even bother coming up with a story, I just said I had to go out. I grabbed my special bag and headed for the Kingsway bus, ready for the transformation again. When I first got out of the Mission, I only had to go out maybe once a month, sometimes once every two months even, and I would be fine. That unbearable panic and urge to scream that I could barely suppress would ease. But now, it seemed like every day all day, it was all I could think of. The last few months the Old Man had given me something to smoke. Called it horse. Said I’d like it, and I did. Made it hard to remember and easy to forget the disgust I felt for him, for myself, for my need to do it again and again, like it might make it all go away.
Tonight, he was waiting for me at the Knight and Day. He had never seen me not dressed in the slut clothes. I think the good-girl clothes freaked him out. This was new.
“Go get dressed. I have something special for you.”
I slipped into the ladies’ room at the Knight and Day and into the far cubicle. I made the transformation, hastily applied the green eyeshadow and screaming red lipstick, the thick black mascara and eyeliner, the pink powder against brown skin. I stepped outside and he was in his usual place on the bench, waiting for me. He stood and sauntered down the alley to the three-walled cinder-block enclosure for the dumpsters. I followed, wondering why the routine had changed. I turned the corner and saw someone was with him.
“Fuck you, I’m outta here.” I glared at him, sucking spit into my mouth, ready to baptize him Kingsway-style.
“Wait. This is Steve. He has something for you. I paid for it, for you. You will love it. It’s horse, but better. You’ll see.”
“After. I’ll do it after.” I handed him the red package. I couldn’t wait anymore.
“And him watch?” His false teeth slipped as he leered at me. He grabbed me, turned me and pushed me against the wall, and pulled up my skirt. “This one likes to be told who she is. Won’t do it otherwise.”
The other guy laughed, nervous arousal in his voice. I heard the Old Man’s zipper and felt him push into me, his hand on the cinder block beside my head, dirty fingernails and long white hair on his saggy arms. He thrust.
“Say it. Or this will be the last time. Say it,” I growled at him.
Over and over the ugly words rang in my ears, reminding me of who I was. Just like Father. He finished and I turned to him. He stuffed the two tens in my bra and looked at Steve. The two shook their heads and laughed. I spit in his face. “Give it to me, asshole.” He wiped the spittle away and laughed again, handing me the candy bar.
“Now, my little Pocahontas, Steve here has something special for you. Sit down here against the wall and wait for a little piece of heaven.”
I wondered how that peaceful feeling could be any better than when I smoked the junk he usually brought me, but I wanted it. The spike didn’t scare me as I watched Steve draw the liquid into it from the spoon. The needle slid in, he drew back blood and then he pressed the plunger in all the way. The peace. No pain. No jitters. I puked and then slumped into the euphoria. I barely registered their laughter.
“Come on, my Indian princess, let’s get you outta here.” The Old Man pulled me up by one arm and Steve grabbed the other. Between them they dragged me down the alley, back to Kingsway, and propped me up on the bus stop bench.
“Meet me here tomorrow if you want more.” Steve lifted the two tens from my bra, laughed and sauntered down Kingsway with the Old Man.
I could barely move, the pleasure was so deep. I must have nodded off, because the next thing I knew it was dark and I was being dragged into the back of a police cruiser.
“Get your hands off me!” I pushed at the cop as he tried to bend me into the back seat. “What did I do? Get the hell away from me.”
“Soliciting. Loitering. Get in the goddamned car.” He shoved me and I fell in headfirst, face down on the seat. He laughed. “Nice ass.”
I remembered I was still in those clothes. “My bag. Where’s my bag?”
“What bag?” He slammed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
“The one with my clothes. My jeans. My T-shirt.”
He sat behind the wheel like he didn’t hear me, gunned the engine and drove away. I looked out the window and watched my bag, sitting at the edge of the bench, disappear. It got smaller and smaller as the car pulled away. I thought of the blue barrette, the college-girl jeans, the wallet with the only picture I had of my mom. The car turned a corner and I lost sight of the bag, and with it my life as something other than what Father made me. It slipped out of me, gone, like it never existed.
They let me out the next morning with a promise to appear. Smelling of puke and craving a bath, I walked from 222 Main all the way to the far side of Chinatown. The cheap patent leather boots chafed at the soft flesh behind my knees and I could feel the blisters forming on my toes. I sat down on a bus stop bench, pulled them off and massaged my feet. I looked up just in time to see a woman, an early riser no doubt, walking her dog before heading off to some office. I saw her look away when I looked up at her. She crossed the street, suddenly interested in the store window displays of embroidered hankies and silk coin purses. I carried on in my stocking feet, carrying my boots. No bag, no bus fare, no keys. I prayed Lucy would be there to let me in. I picked up the pace, hoping I could catch her before she left for work at the Manitou.
I caught sight of myself in the window of the Army & Navy store, stopped dead in my tracks, the boots dropping from my hand and clattering against the pavement. There were mascara trails running down my cheeks. There was a large hole in my stockings, runs bubbling over my flesh. I licked my fingers and rubbed my face as clean as possible. My hair was a matted mess. I pulled my fingers through my knotted hair, trying to perform some kind of magic. I struggled with it. What had been teased before was a rat’s nest now. I stepped closer to get a better angle on the mess and was confronted with my own face, my eyes swollen and framed with smeared makeup. I waved off the hankie offered by a working girl making her way home after a long night. It seemed a long time that I stood there, looking at that woman in the window.
I turned away and headed toward Chinatown and the apartment, leaving the boots on the ground, not hurrying anymore. There was no sense of relief or familiarity as I reached my block. Nothing. I couldn’t feel anything except my hurting feet. Even the sound of the buzzer seemed disconnected from the act of pressing it. Standing in place, I lifted one foot off the ground after the other, the balls of my feet raw from the cement and gravel.
“Hello?” Lucy’s tentative voice crackled through the intercom.
“Lucy! It’s me, buzz me up.” My voice came out as sharp as the bursting blisters that I would have to explain. My mind raced. I looked at my clothes, the stink worsened by the moist drizzle of the Vancouver morning. I felt the leftover puke loosening in my hair.
“Maisie! Where have you been?”
“Jesus, Lucy, just buzz me up.” Finally, the familiar buzz and click, and I pushed through the door.
Lucy stood in the open doorway at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t help but notice she was wearing my bunny slippers. Her mouth fell open when she caught sight of me, and she held her hand up as though to stop me.
“Maisie, no . . .”
I pushed past her into the apartment
just as Jimmy rose from the couch and turned to look at me.
“When you didn’t come home, I phoned him. I didn’t know what to do.” Lucy started crying.
“Oh,” he said. “Now I understand.” He reached for his jacket and eased by me toward the open door.
“Jimmy, no, wait. Let me explain.”
He recoiled from my outstretched hand. “Explain what? That you’re a whore?” He stepped farther away from me, his face filled with disgust. “You stink.”
“Jimmy.” I thought I would vomit, the tears I never cried rising, choking out of me in wrenching sobs. “Jimmy.”
“Fuck off, Maisie. Don’t ever call me. What was with all that good-girl stuff anyway? How many johns were you fucking or sucking or whatever you do when you wouldn’t even let me touch you?”
I couldn’t bear it. He would never understand. My chance of being Jimmy’s girl was gone before I even left the Mission. The rage ran up my spine in uncontrollable waves. I watched him go, his broad shoulders filling out his fancy leather coat. I ran after him through the doorway and pushed him with all my strength. He staggered, catching himself on the railing.
“Fuck off, Jimmy, you piece of shit. Too good for everyone, eh? Fuck off and die!” I turned back into the apartment and slammed the door, his stunned face the last Jimmy expression I would see.
I turned on Lucy. “Get the fuck out of my slippers.” She kicked them off her feet with a look of terror on her face as though she had never seen me before. Maybe she hadn’t. I grabbed the slippers, ran into the kitchen and threw them out the window. I ran into the bedroom and pulled the drawers open and started pitching the pretty things out the bedroom window. “Fuck it. Fuck it all.”
Lucy came running into the bedroom. She grabbed my arm as I started throwing my shoes and sandals out the window. “Maisie, stop.”
I turned on her, the tears a flood now. “Why? Why should I stop? Look at me. This is what I am. Who would ever want me? No one. Get me a fucking cigarette.” Lucy ran into the living room and brought back a pack of smokes, matches and an ashtray. I slumped down on the bed, lit a smoke and inhaled deeply.
Five Little Indians Page 7